World class computing and information science research at Strathclyde...

The Strathprints institutional repository is a digital archive of University of Strathclyde's Open Access research outputs. Strathprints provides access to thousands of Open Access research papers by University of Strathclyde researchers, including by researchers from the Department of Computer & Information Sciences involved in mathematically structured programming, similarity and metric search, computer security, software systems, combinatronics and digital health.

The Department also includes the iSchool Research Group, which performs leading research into socio-technical phenomena and topics such as information retrieval and information seeking behaviour.

Abstract

The performance of a compact uv photo-preionized TE laser is studied in the pressure range 1-5 bar. As the pressure is increased, the laser pulse shape is little altered, but both the peak power and the total output pulse energy increase significantly with pressure, even for constant input electrical energy. For various gas mixtures and excitation source capacitors the measurements suggest approximate output energy scaling with the product of the source charge per unit electrode area [C.m-2] and the molecular partial pressure [CO2+N2+CO]. This is explained in terms of the pressure-dependent discharge impedance. An input-energy-related discharge instability limits the optimum laser pressure to 1.5-2.5 bar, and we show that, at constant input energy, the instability boundary depends on the molecular partial pressure alone. The pre-ionization photo-electron yield varies negligibly with pressure, but the discharge tolerance to added oxygen decreases asp -3 top -4, dependent on gas mixture. Nevertheless sealed operation for >105 shots has been obtained with a 5% CO25% CO3% N22% H285% He gas mixture at a total pressure of 5 bar.